Our form of government has been an interesting experiment in freedom. Instead of exchanging blows, bombs and bullets when we disagree, our founding fathers proposed a better idea: How about we just exchange words instead? That’s why we have freedom of speech.

Now sometimes that speech is angry, but that’s nothing new to American politics because political history in our country has been full of angry rhetoric. Just look at the hateful things colonists said about King George during the time of the American revolution.

When someone says we have to ban hate speech, you then we have to define what hate or angry rhetoric is, and very quickly it becomes your political ideas somebody else doesn’t like.

But, they claim, it incites violence. Well, every society unfortunately has mentally unstable outliers such as John Brown. John Brown was a radical abolitionist in favor of doing away with slavery prior to the civil war. You might agree with his cause, but he murdered people in pursuing it and he was executed for his crimes.

In reality when words – even angry words – are suppressed, that’s when the real violence begins. So be very very careful about listening to people who claim we shouldn’t tolerate speech they don’t like. Because when words stop flowing, freedom and people begin to die.

John Loeffler is 40-year broadcast news veteran and host of the nationally syndicated talk show Steel on Steel (www.steelonsteel.com) on the IRN/USA/Family Radio Networks,and co-host of The Financial Sense Newshour (www.financialsense.com).

Want more resources on these topics? Here are some previous programs you might find interesting: